Annotation:Lady Gethin

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LADY GETHIN. Irish, Planxty. C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. This tune was perhaps composed by blind Irish harper Turlough O'Carolan (1670-1738), and although Donal O'Sullivan (1958) in his definitive work on the bard could find no incontrovertable evidence for its origin, he believes can be stylistically attributed to him.

The subject, suggests O'Sullivan, was Margaret Eames, the wife of Sir Richard Gethin, 3rd Baronet, whom she married around 1725. She was the daughter of Colonel Eames. At the time of her marriage Sir Richard was the High Sheriff of County Sligo. She survived her husband by a few years and died before 1778.

Source for notated version: The P.W. Joyce manuscripts (Dublin) [O'Sullivan]. Joyce noted the tunes in 1912, "copied from a small MS book lent me by Mr. Patrick McGrath...Dublin. Many of the airs were very incorrectly written and required careful restoration. The names are generally in both English and in (correct) Irish." O'Sullivan says the titles suggest they were noted in Connacht--probably County Mayo.

Printed sources: Complete Collection of Carolan's Irish Tunes, 1984; No. 51, p. 51. O'Sullivan (Carolan: The Life, Times, and Music of an Irish Harper), 1958; No. 51, p. 129.

Recorded sources: Shanachie 79013, Derek Bell - "Carolan's Receipt" (1987).

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